Those who remember the 1979 Iranian Revolution may see an irony at the moment in the fact that the son of the man — and regime — that was deposed at that time has now become a rallying point for a possible counter-revolution.

Particularly since so many of the grievances of the population are so strikingly similar.

The CIA-backed Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was toppled after lengthy protests and strikes in a revolutionary movement in which an exiled cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini, became the rallying point and leader.

The CIA-backed Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was toppled after lengthy protests and strikes in a revolutionary movement in which an exiled cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini, became the rallying point and leader. (AP Photo: File)

A complicated political reality

The theocratic nature of the regime which Khomeini would eventually establish after the Shah's downfall — and the anti-American sentiment of Iranians at the time — may have been the distinguishing features of this particular revolution.

These features created a new lens on, and crisis point in, world events: after decades in which the United States' foreign policy was framed overwhelmingly by a battle against communism, the Iranian revolution marked the beginning of new forces at work in the Middle East.

But the 1979 Revolution was not solely driven by religion, even if attacks on religious figures and places by the regime were crucial in how events unfolded.

Opposition forces were also motivated by massive corruption, economic difficulties like inflation and recession, and inequality, which was unfolding despite the country's rich oil reserves at the time of the OPEC oil boom.

Understanding how events unfold from here requires an understanding of how Iranian society — and the economy — have reconfigured in the 47 years since the revolution.

While Iran is sometimes still seen as simply a theocracy run by "Mad Mullahs", reality is always more complicated.

Ayatollah Khomeini died in 1989, a decade after the revolution, and his successor as Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, has ruled with an increasingly ruthless and centralised hand, which analysts of Iran note is now built on exceptionally close ties to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Bazaaris shut their doors

While the Iranian leadership continues to blame the US and Israel for fomenting the current protests, it is notable that demonstrations in the past couple of months actually started on economic grounds in one of the institutions that most people might most associate with Iran: The bazaars.

The merchants who run Iran's bazaars, known as bazaaris, played a crucial role in the 1979 revolution. For some time, they profited from it by being part of the new regime's economic structures.

In recent weeks, they have shut their doors to protest the impact of a collapsing Iranian currency, which is devastating their businesses.

The bazaaris' role in 1979 was also driven by economics: The threat that was posed to them by the Shah's attempts at rapidly modernising the economy. They have generally been positioned as moderate conservatives in more recent times, and as backers of the various more reformist Iranian presidents who have occupied the job.

So their frontrunning this time around is very significant.

The protests that have grown in recent weeks, despite increasingly dire warnings of death penalties being imposed on protesters, let alone the hundreds of protesters who have been killed, shows the revolt has spread more widely.

While there have been many rounds of protests over the years, often associated with economic hardship, it was only really in the protests in 2022-23, following the death of a young woman in custody — arrested by the morality police for not wearing the hijab correctly — that the overthrow of the theocracy and the downfall of Khamenei became the central issue.

Once again, the grievances are not just about a repressive theocratic regime.

'Profound shift' in political economy

Kayhan Valadbaygi is a research fellow at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam.

He writes for Al Jazeera that a privatisation push from 2005 "became a vehicle for the transfer of major state assets to firms affiliated with the IRGC and (large religious-revolutionary foundations known as) bonyads".

"Reclassified as 'public, non-governmental entities' under a new interpretation of Article 44 of the Constitution, these bodies absorbed vast swaths of the economy," Valadbaygi writes. 

"Backed by the supreme leader and a cabinet dominated by military and security figures, many of them former IRGC officers, this redistribution of wealth encountered little institutional resistance."

The result, Valadbaygi says, was a "profound shift" in Iran's political economy as the IRGC expanded its economic reach across different sectors. 

"Major bonyads, including the Mostazafan Foundation, the Imam Reza Shrine Foundation, and Setad, similarly consolidated their power by acquiring state firms and building sprawling corporate empires," he writes.

"Together, these entities formed an extensive web of interlocking conglomerates that fused revolutionary foundations with military institutions." 

Determining what happens next is the question of how many cracks exist, or may appear, in these very solid, well-armed, and financially self-interested groups.

Protesters have no doubt been emboldened by the fact that senior generals in the regime have been killed in recent months, and that Israeli and US strikes have left Iran with virtually no air defences.

But for now the IRGC remains firmly supportive of the Supreme Leader and it is not clear what internal or external forces could work to alter that.

US president Donald Trump has been talking big over the weekend about standing ready to intervene in support of the protesters. The intelligence capacity of Israel — which has been so crucial in the disabling of Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran's capacity for regional influence — will also be crucial.

But just how the Iranian people can affect change from inside is unclear.

With the internet down, and even the ability to send text messages now affected, the capacity to organise is limited.

Despite this, calls by the Shah's son, Reza Pahlavi, from outside the country for people to take to the streets seem to have coincided with an escalation in the size of protests.

He says he is open to leading a transitional government, and has published a '"100-day plan'" for that transition, which is notably based in economic policy.

US President Donald Trump has been talking big over the weekend about standing ready to intervene in support of the protesters. (Reuters: Kevin Lamarque)

US intervention waning

The days when the US sought to be fully involved in the sort of regime change that brought Reza Pahlavi's father to power are gone.

Even Trump, in his recent muscular foreign policy phase, has shied away from regime change in Venezuela.

He has also conspicuously declined to endorse Pahlavi, or any other specific Iranian leader, to take over in Iran.

Pahlavi has been urging the US to help protesters through means such as fixing internet access, rather than military intervention.

In the meantime, there are calls on the streets of Iran for him to be returned and installed.

Often in times of such extraordinary national upheaval, the details of history can be lost in the search for any particular figurehead.

But 47 years on, in a country where around 60 per cent of the population is aged under 39, the memories of how the now much hated current regime began, are probably pretty dim.

Laura Tingle is the ABC's Global Affairs Editor.